world leaders

14 April 2010

President Obama hosted 47 world leaders at a summit yesterday, with the goal being to find ways to reduce the threat that terrorists such as al Qaeda could obtain nuclear materials or weapons.

President Obama completed a first meeting of world leaders on combating nuclear terrorism with a list of specific commitments from dozens of nations to eliminate or lock down nuclear materials, in what he called a “bold and pragmatic” program to finish the task in the next four years.

The meeting that Mr. Obama convened, and to a great degree stage-managed, was unlike any negotiations over arms control with the Soviets during the cold war or, more recently, the so-far fruitless talks to get North Korea to disarm. This was a far broader effort to persuade African, Latin American, Asian and European nations to agree on steps to deny terrorist groups the two materials necessary to make a bomb: plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

Mr. Obama began the session arguing that while superpower confrontation was far more remote, the risk of nuclear terrorism had never been greater, and he quoted the warning of Albert Einstein soon after the beginning of the nuclear age: “We are drifting towards a catastrophe beyond comparison.” [……]

He achieved some success[emphasis is mine].

At the end of two days of meetings, Mr. Obama could claim two major accomplishments: The summit meeting forced countries that had failed to clean up their nuclear surpluses to formulate detailed plans to deal with them, and it kicked into action nations that had failed to move on previous commitments.

A second summit meeting will be held in two years in South Korea, Mr. Obama said, to make sure countries are on track. [……]

12 April 2010

President Obama and 47 presidents, prime ministers, and other heads of state from around the world meet in Washington today to develop a plan to keep nuclear weapons from falling in to the hands of terrorists.

Confronting what he calls the "single biggest threat to U.S. security," Obama is looking for global help in his goal of ensuring all nuclear materials worldwide are secured from theft or diversion within four years.

On the eve of what would be the largest assembly of world leaders hosted by an American president since 1945 — the San Francisco conference to found the United Nations — Obama said nuclear materials in the hands of al-Qaida or another terrorist group "could change the security landscape in this country and around the world for years to come."

This follows on the heels of his recent previous steps to rid the world of the threat of nuclear weapons.

22 April 2009

|At a United Nations conference on racism in Geneva on Monday, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, launched in to a tirade against Israel. Delegates from a number of European countries walked out in protest. The U.S., Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Israel all boycotted the conference as they had expected Ahmadinejad to use the conference as a forum to “focus on maligning Israel rather than on the global problems of discrimination, replaying the disputes that marked the first United Nations conference on combating racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.”The countries that walked out: Austria, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic (has left the conference for good), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, , Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, St. Kitts and NevisImage courtesy of The NYT.

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|The release of the Bush torture memos last week caused many on the left to become more vocal, urging the current administration to hold accountable those who directed others to violate U.S. and international law. On Tuesday, President Obama stated publicly for the first time, that he is open to prosecution of the people responsible for directing others to commit acts of torture. Bolding is mine.From The New York Times:

But in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, he said, “if and when there needs to be a further accounting,” he hoped that Congress would examine ways to obtain one “in a bipartisan fashion,” from people who are independent and therefore can build credibility with the public.

Image of the scales of justice on top of the Old Bailey in London, by Andrew Parsons, courtesy of the BBC.

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|Congress is back in Washington this week, after a break for Easter recess. At the top of their agenda is the budget, healthcare, and credit cards. The president has said that he expects Republicans to come back with a more “constructive attitude toward health care, energy and other administration initiatives.” David Axelrod via Huffpost:

"No one expects the Republican Party to fully embrace what we're doing," Axelrod said. "What they would like is for us to ratify the policies that we've had for the last eight years that have gotten us into the mess we're in. We have two parties for a reason, but there are areas of common interest, and we ought to pursue them."

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|On Monday, President Obama directed his cabinet to cut spending by $100 million, acknowledging that it’s a drop in the proverbial bucket.The cabinet was directed to go through the expenses in each of their areas, and eliminate a total of $100 million from the budget.

Obama said the $100 million would come from "efficiencies" in agency operations, and would be in addition to future cuts in programs that aren't working.

Yet the red ink in the annual budget is currently in the hundreds of billions. He was asked if the efficiency saving isn't just "a drop in the bucket".

"It is," he replied. "None of these things alone are going to make a difference. But cumulatively, they make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone ... $100 million there, $100 million here _ pretty soon, even here in Washington, it adds up to real money."

__________________________ |In signing legislation that will triple the size of the Americorps program, President Obama called on students to volunteer to improve their communities. . __________________________

19 February 2009

President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper shake hands.

:: The President, in his first foreign trip since being sworn in to office in January, visited Canada today, where crowds of Canadians greeted him with cheers and American flags.From the AP:

As Obama pulled up to Parliament Hill under gray skies, a cheering crowd of more than 1,000 people greeted him. A woman along his motorcade route carried a sign that read "Yes we CANada!"

Obama touched down late morning in Ottawa, heading into a day of meetings. He came bearing a pro-trade message to assuage Canadian concerns over protectionism; a promise of a new strategy in Afghanistan as Canada moves to pull out all its troops there; and talk of clean-energy cooperation as controversy hangs over Canada's massive oil-rich tar sands.

Some of the headlines from the Canadian press today:

"The world's most recognizable man"

"Obama is like the sun, too powerful to look at directly"

"Obama is CHANGE writ extravagantly"

"The western world's only political rock star"

You may recall that in the past, Bush’s visits to Canada engendered massive protests by Canadian citizens. What a welcome difference! From Think Progress:

– “Thousands of protesters marched on Parliament Tuesday, rallying against President Bush’s visit and the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Twelve people were arrested after scuffling with police on the fringes of the peaceful demonstration.”

– “But with thousands of protesters expected to demonstrate against Mr. Bush, the White House decided to cut short his visit to Ottawa and travel to Halifax instead.”